Let’s Adopt the Baptist Faith & Message This Year

Let’s have a define-the-relationship talk. Let’s make 2019 the year that we make it official. Let’s bring the whole Southern Baptist family together in agreement around The Baptist Faith & Message.

We’ve waited long enough. The BF&M has existed in its current revision for nineteen years this coming summer. It is not going away. It enjoys broad support within the SBC. All of the SBC entities at the national level have adopted it years ago. It works just fine.

It will strengthen our unity, not divide us. The recent kerfuffle at Southwest Baptist University in Missouri highlights the way that the lack of a unifying statement of faith among Southern Baptists creates an environment that is ripe for theological controversy. SBU has not affirmed The Baptist Faith & Message since its revision in 2000, to my knowledge. In my opinion, the best move that SBU could take this year to gain the confidence of Missouri Baptists and to put this episode behind them is to affirm the BF&M without caveats and have all of their religion professors agree to teach in accordance with and not contrary to it. Having served at an institution that has followed this approach, I can vouch for its effectiveness. Although I wish well to Dr. Bass, what SBU does with him has ceased to be dispositive. Retaining him will not put away suspicion, and firing him will fuel the controversy more. But affirming the BF&M in a way that makes it the true standard of theological instruction at SBU to which all professors are held? The controversy wouldn’t survive ten minutes beyond the implementation of that decision.

It is not creedalism. Nobody is saying that there is no salvation outside affirmation of the BF&M. Nobody is suggesting that the arm of the state should enforce adherence to it. The BF&M is simply a way that the thousands of churches who partner through the Southern Baptist Convention and related associations and conventions can have a transparent agreement about the theological convictions that will guide our cooperative work. I’m always amazed when people teach that the use of statements of faith constitutes anti-Baptist creedalism while knowing full well that every Baptist history class and publication makes reference to Baptist confessions of faith dating back to our modern inception. Having and using a confession of faith is a very Baptist thing to do.

It does not violate local-church autonomy; it enhances it. Asking entities, associations, and conventions to affirm The Baptist Faith & Message is not the same thing as forcing them to do so. The Southern Baptist Convention cannot fire the preacher, confiscate the offerings, take possession of the buildings, or shut down the website of the smallest SBC-affiliated congregation. Neither, however, can the largest SBC-affiliated congregation force all of the other SBC-affiliated congregations to remain in friendly cooperation with them. Autonomous churches have the right to determine which churches belong and which churches do not belong—which churches are compatible and which churches are not compatible—when they form cooperative bodies. To say that churches cannot do so—that they cannot exclude churches who would work against the theological and missiological consensus of the group—is to violate the autonomy of the majority of churches in deference to the minority. Preserving free association and disassociation preserves the autonomy of all of the churches. The majority are free to determine the bounds of association; the minority are free to accept or reject those terms.

The trajectory of SBC life outside the BF&M is clear. That’s one thing that nineteen years of subsequent history has shown us. There is no ambiguity about where the CBF is headed. Questions remain about the timeline, but the destination is a foregone conclusion. The initial refusal of some of our state conventions, local associations, and related ministries to affirm the BF&M was based entirely upon the fiction—dare I say, with the benefit of hindsight, the fantasy—that non-affirming SBC churches could remain as orthodox as they were in the mid-1970s and that the danger of a slippery slope was overstated. Now that some of those who indulged that fiction are seeing it for what it was and is, they find themselves looking for a way to avoid the direction of the CBF and achieve the direction of the SBC, but without admitting that they were wrong and without making any substantial changes to the environment that produced the direction of the CBF. It’s not so much that the BF&M is some sort of magic talisman that wards off theological drift, it’s more that the refusal to affirm it is a petri dish for the viruses of heterodoxical pandemic. This is true whatever form the refusal takes. When it takes the form of clinging to an older revision, it amounts to a refusal to commit to a robust concept of biblical inerrancy. The full collection of enthusiastic biblical inerrantists who reject the BF&M 2000 in favor of the BF&M 1963 could travel to Birmingham on a Harley. When it takes the form (as it has in too many churches and local associations) of affirming some esoteric set of cooperative theological principles the belong better in a twelve-step program than they do in a gospel church, then it creates—well, you see it preaching on TV often enough to know what it creates. A lot of churches affirm theological statements beyondThe Baptist Faith & Message, and I’m fine with that, but all parts of the SBC family ought to be able to affirm the BF&M as it presently stands. Anyone who can’t do that is on the way out already.

And so, if you are a member of a state convention or local association who (a) is a part of the Southern Baptist family, and yet (b) has never affirmed The Baptist Faith & Message in its latest revision, I’d encourage you to consider working in 2019 to change that state of affairs. We can do this, and we should.

And, the open/closed/close communion issue wouldn’t work against any of what Bart is saying.

January 7, 2019 10:26 am

Ben Wright

I had the same issue in mind. Bart, what would you do with the majority of SBC churches that practice open communion?

I’m instinctively in favor of confessionalism, but I don’t want us to adopt a confession we don’t enforce. (Aren’t we doing that in our state convention on this point, perhaps another?) And I’m also reluctant to discard a proper statement on the relationship between baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The situation with regard to the extent of communion is, of course, a thorny one. I do not believe that it poses any special problem for the matter that I have addressed for the following reasons:

1. The vast preponderance of entities in the Southern Baptist family who have not adopted the BF&M 2000 have already adopted the BF&M 1963. The language about the Lord’s Supper that you gentlemen have mentioned goes back to the 1925 BF&M. Indeed, it goes back to the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, widely acknowledged as the primary source document for the 1925 BF&M. So, differences over the extent of communion are not the reason why any entity has clung to the BF&M 1963 over the BF&M 2000, and adopting the revised BF&M will not make any entity any less consistent with regard to the Lord’s Supper than they already are.

2. Having spoken with a lot of people (both online and IRL) about this matter, it is my observation that the quite a few of the brethren with whom I disagree neither reject the idea that baptism is the immersion of a believer, nor embrace the idea that unbaptized people ought generally to participate in the Lord’s Supper. This seems at first glance to be irreconcilably self-contradictory given their embrace of open communion. Their position (even if it is an inconsistent one, IMHO) is that the Presbyterian believer who is genuinely a believer and who was sprinkled as an infant is more an improperly baptized believer than an unbaptized believer. Their interpretation of the BF&M statement is…

Christian baptism [PROPERLY DONE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT MANNER] is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it [DONE IN SOME FORM, WHETHER PROPERLY OR IMPROPERLY] is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.

In other words, these are people who think that those participating in the Lord’s Supper should be baptized in their own eyes. They make the question of baptism a matter of self-examination rather than one of church examination.

I do not think that this is a particularly good reading of the BF&M. It is a difference no wider, however, than the difference between Dwight McKissic’s understanding of the word “pastor” and my understanding of that same word in Article VI (Dwight thinks “pastor” only means “senior pastor” in portions of that article). Although I hope that our convention will grow to a better understanding of the relationship between baptism and the Lord’s Supper, I do think that there is a way for us to move forward in adopting a common confession of faith.

January 7, 2019 8:35 am

Ben Wright

More to say, but I can only comment briefly at the moment.

What is the value of confessionalism if we all get to interpret it however seems right in our own eyes?

I agree with you, but I prefer bad confessionalism over good non-confessionalism. 🙂

January 7, 2019 7:46 pm

Ben Wright

I’m willing to be persuaded but I’m afraid more bad confessionalism would require another resurgence of some sort, and I’m pretty sure all the good names are taken.

January 8, 2019 3:08 pm

Craig Beeman

This is all well and good except where we center in on a particular sin in excluding churches. If we are going to highlight homosexuality, then we need to also highlight drinking. There are way too many who justify it and feel as if it does no harm to them or anyone else. We need to be consistent in our actions when it comes to excluding churches from fellowship. Does that make sense?

January 7, 2019 9:49 am

Daviss Woodbury

Are you speaking of drunkenness, or are you suggesting that any consumption of beverage alcohol is explicitly sinful? Trying to hear and understand your argument.

No, it does not make sense. Brother, are you seriously comparing homosexual acts which the Bible clearly condemns as a sinful abomination with drinking that the Bible does not call a sin? Drunkenness is certainly a sin which leads to all kinds of other sin. Someone may make the case that wisdom suggests abstaining from drinking is a good thing to do. But a brother or sister who enjoys a glass of wine with their dinner, never getting drunk and maintaining self-control is not sinning. Plainly sir, this is ridiculous.

January 7, 2019 10:39 am

Craig Beeman

Ah, but when a member who has a dislike for the consumption sees a deacon buying it, it bothers her. When we specifically named a sin in the BF&M, I felt like we were holding that sin above all others. Gossip is a horrible wrecker of churches. There are other sins that I am sure we can agree on that would need to be mentioned in the BF&M, if we have to start naming sins that we do not allow churches to have in order to be a part of the SBC.

I was.reading back through comments of our previous discussions of BF&M issues related to Lords supper and the general tone was that the BF&M is designed not as a document of control for local churches (though it defines our common beliefs) but as a guide for institutions.

We are not going to adopt some kind of communion police to test practices. This is designed to primarily to hold institutions accountable

January 7, 2019 10:42 am

Alan Cross

What aspect of the BFM2000 is it that keeps us from cultural drift? I see lots of BFM2000 affirming pastors/churches running as fast after this new emerging populist/nationalist culture as they possibly can. Much of this sentiment, especially in how it treats minorities, immigrants, and foreigners is unbiblical. Yet, there is barely a whimper. Jerry Falwell, Jr. recently made statements about the role of Christian witness in government that are antithetical to the BFM2000’s Article XV on The Christian and the Social Order regarding the call to influence government in a Christian way. Yet, there hasn’t been a peep from our broad array of theologians and pastors who weigh in on a variety of subjects constantly. I know that Falwell isn’t SBC per se, but Liberty certainly enjoys high standing among many BFM2000 affirming SBC pastors and leaders, so a deviation from it should at least raise eyebrows. My point is not at all to knock the BFM2000. I have affirmed it and pastored under it. I’m simply asking what part of it keeps us from culture drift because I’m seeing tons of culture drift right now and the BFM2000 is ignored and few say anything. Or, is culture drift in one direction seen as better than in another?

I’m not accusing you of saying any of that. I think that you and I are likely agreed on these issues. I’m just introducing another aspect here and am saying that I don’t know that culture drift, in general, is really the issue, because it happens on both sides. It just depends on which way bothers you.

Let this all begin with the SBC and the churches with whom she chooses to affiliate. Let the messengers make it policy that the SBC will not affiliate (receive money and seat messengers) with churches who do not affirm the BF&M 2000. What’s the point of expecting non-SBC entities to uphold the BF&M 2000 if the Convention welcomes churches who do not uphold the BF&M 2000?

January 7, 2019 11:38 am

Alan Cross

You’d have a rather thorough gutting of the SBC if you did that. To say that the BFM1963 is by nature a liberal document is just wrong. It isn’t. It might not have all of the safeguards in place that you’d like to keep a liberal or moderate drift from happening, but it isn’t a theologically liberal document and it served the SBC well for almost 40 years. To disfellowship churches over affirming 1963 and not 2000 is to go far beyond what Scripture would call for, especially if those churches maintain Biblical theology and practice. Maybe some churches didn’t like the way the Conservative Resurgence did their politics, even if they agreed with the theology overall? Maybe some saw nothing wrong with the BFM1963 as a statement of faith and covered specific elements in question to safeguard against drift in their own Constitution and Bylaws? A blanket disfellowship of churches who affirm what Southern Baptists historically affirmed, especially if they are still currently theologically orthodox and adhere to biblical orthropraxy is quite a leap and would limit the fellowship of churches even further.

Yes, and the place of accountability should begin with the Convention and our collective decision as messengers to welcome institutions (and by “institutions” I mean churches) who do not uphold the BF&M 2000. Why adopt a particular statement of faith as a convention and at the same time welcome churches who do not affirm that very statement?

If we made it policy then churches who affirm the 1925 BF&M, or the 1963 BF&M, or a completely different statement of faith could simply vote to affirm the BF&M 2000. If a church votes against affirming the BF&M 2000 then let them go.

BTW, our church affirms the 1963 BF&M. No need to change unless the SBC makes it a point of policy for church affiliation.

January 7, 2019 12:30 pm

Craig Beeman

I agree wtih you Alan.

January 7, 2019 12:28 pm

Les

I agree with Bart. His initial point was the issue at SBU in Missouri. There is a distinction between local churches and denominational entities. Entities should be under direct control and authority of the sponsoring convention (state convention or SBC). And the conventions need a consistent guideline/standard or statement of belief (BF&M) to hold their entities accountable.

Local churches are a more complicated issue as to the adherence of BF&M. Still a vital standard, but not as easy to manage or monitor.

January 7, 2019 12:11 pm

Roger Simpson

I agree that the situation with individual congregations is different than entities in the SBC umbrella.

I don’t think it is possible, to have binding rules on individual congregations. Most people in the pews have no idea of what the BFM says. They also have no idea of the practical outworking of the BFM as it relates to their own interface with whatever local church they attend.

In my case, I could not join a local SBC church without being baptized — even though I had previously been baptized BY IMMERSION in another church. It turns out that the local church I was joining applied a nuanced interpretation to what is “baptism”. This happened back in the 1957-58 time frame. I don’t know if most SBC congregations still split hairs over the nuanced meaning of baptism or not.

I do know that — at the church I attend here in Oklahoma — my wife was baptized a second time after a sermon which raised the issue of “are you really saved or did you just go through a ritual”. The preacher convinced her that she was, in fact, not really saved. But because she is disabled and unable to walk or stand up she what given a “virtual” baptism without water while she was seated in her battery powered scooter. In the real world, churches are all over the map on just exactly what constitutes baptism.

For example: [A] Does water have to be involved? [B] If so does the mode have to immersion? [C] Assuming you have been baptized by immersion previously does this count if the previously baptizing church has certain theological stances which are out of sync with the SBC congregation you are joining? [D] What if you are a Christian but you were previously baptized by sprinkling and/or you were baptized as an infant?

My takeaway observation based upon actual test cases is that SBC congregations don’t practice a consistent interpretation of the BFM regarding either baptism or the Lord’s supper. I don’t think it is possible, even in principle, to come up with wording in the BFM, or any other document, which describes the nuanced contradictions we see in the real world across all 44,000 SBC congregations.

My own personal takeaway. Baptism is not necessary for salvation so what difference does it make if your baptism is slightly out of sync with the current norm? If baptism was that big a deal Jesus would have told the criminal on the cross, “Get the proper baptism and then we can talk about how you can be with me in heaven”. [Luke 23:43]

In my wife’s case no one told her, “You can’t participate in the Lord’s supper because you were not properly baptized” But evidently her first baptism was defective, based upon a literal reading of the BFM, because in retrospect she was convinced she was not a Christain at the time when she was baptized. And her second baptism, according to the BFM, was defective because water — by immersion, sprinkling, pouring [or any other type of wetting process] was not involved.

January 7, 2019 2:19 pm

Roger Simpson

There is a typo in my previous post. In the 4th paragraph change “walk or stand up she what given” to “walk or stand up she WAS given”.

——
I believe all of the discussion we are having here regarding the Lord’s supper and Baptism is academic because, for a variety of reasons, churches don’t follow the guidelines of the BFM. They have to improvise because there are a number of special cases not covered by the BFM.

If section VII of the BFM was truly going to be a document which addresses every real world case then it would have to be expanded to become a 50 page writeup.

[A] A person wants to join your church and that person was previously baptized by immersion by a congregation that holds to the idea that baptism is needed for salvation –> Is that person’s previous baptism by immersion in water null and void even if the person is not aware of the fact this his previous baptism was considered as a requirement for salvation? Should the BFM stipulate special circumstances in which baptism by immersion in NOT acceptable?

[B] A person is disabled and can’t walk or standup –> Is it OK in this case that they have some sort of baptism not involving immersion since they can’t physically get into the baptism pool? Would alternative baptism methods be OK such as pouring water on them or sprinkling them?

I think people can get carried away with all of this argumentation regarding the Baptist Faith & Message

Again, the Convention decides with whom the Convention will affiliate. The Convention has adopted a confession of faith. Currently, that confession is the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. Why, then, should we choose to affiliate with churches who do not or will not affirm that same confession?

This isn’t requiring churches to do or agree with anything. This is the Convention establishing a criterion for the Convention with regards to which churches the Convention will pursue friendly cooperation and affiliation. A church would be free to carry on with the ’25, or ’63, or some other confession, but the Convention would simply choose to not affiliate with that church.

January 7, 2019 5:28 pm

David

Who will be the entity to look at the websites of the 45,000 SBC churches to see whether or not they affirm the BFM2000? Will the officers of the Executive Committee take on this task? or will they delegate it to the administrative assistants? This is a complete misunderstanding of SBC polity. The local associations vote member churches out of their respective association if their is some serious disagreement on theology. This happened in 2015 when the Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, AL had one of their ministers perform a gay marriage on the local courthouse steps. It get a lot of publicity and the local association voted them out and as a result they were no longer in the Alabama Baptist Convention. This is the way it is setup to work – from the bottom up, not from Nashville down.

Also, your contention is that after the vote for BFM in 2000, every church needed to immediately affirm the new statement or be forced to leave seems a little extreme. Churches which had been in the Convention since before its founding and are not in some serious theological disagreement would have to leave just because they didn’t vote to change to the new statement and put it on their website.

In this digital age implementation of such a policy would not be as difficult as it may seem. However, it would require a great deal of willingness and agreement. With the current trend of the SBC choosing to affiliate with non-Baptist churches I don’t see such willingness and agreement occuring any time soon.

BTW, getting booted from a local Baptist association does not automatically end affiliation with the state convention or national convention. The SBC affiliates with churches that give directly to Nashville headquarters or who give through a state convention. It has nothing to do with membership in a local Baptist association.

Churches who choose to not adopt the Convention’s statement of faith could still give to the SBC if they wish. As a matter of fact, any church of any denomination is currently free to give to the SBC. However, only the members of those churches that have adopted the Convention’s confession of faith would be granted messengership and service within the Convention.

My sense of things is that this is a very top-down tack on this rather complicated issue. I, for one, am in favor of a solution different than the Convention (whomever that is comprised of) telling me how our church is supposed to relate to it and on what grounds. “They” already almost made us non-Southern Baptists with the IMB debacle a few years back. And having taught adjunct at a SBC seminary, I was asked to affirm more than the BF&M or any other founding documents. I was asked to affirm both the Danvers Statement and the Chicago Statement. Again, that all has the musty smell of a top-down approach and is less than ideal for Baptist polity, IMHO. I’m open to someone else’s interpretation that can help me make sense of it though.

Messengers to the SBC are members of affiliated Baptist churches. Actually, that’s not totally true because the Convention affiliates with non-Baptist churches. But more than likely a great majority of the messengers that attend the SBC are members of Baptist churches. Since the Convention is made up of members from local Baptist churches this would not be a “top-down track.”

There was a time when Baptist conventions did not exist. The Convention only exists because members of local Baptist churches wanted to create a method of cooperation with one another while maintaining individual church autonomy. So, it’s simply church members from currently affiliated local Baptist churches re-determining the criterion of cooperation and affiliation with one another, and with any future Baptist churches that might wish to affiliate.

The SBC in session has never required positive action by a church on the BFM. I’ve no objection to any pastor encouraging churches to do so. Many entities do in certain circumstances. I’ve never known of a state convention or association to require individual church affirmation but may have missed some that do.

True, all we require is a church be a Baptist church that has “…a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.” Looking at it again just now, one could possibly argue that the language doesn’t require a church to have an adopted statement of faith at all.

Interesting to note, for the first 80 years of its existence (1845-1925) the Convention did not have an “adopted statement of faith.” Could be wrong, but I think that’s right.

January 9, 2019 8:31 pm

Les

That was the point I was making in my statement you quoted. Entities and churches are two distinct bodies each of which must be handled differently.

January 7, 2019 9:02 pm

Dean Stewart

As to the BF&M and our entities, if we believe the primary job of the BF&M is to protect the theological integrity of our entities, that it was designed for this purpose, then would our brothers and sisters who serve as trustees and sign the BF&M before they can serve have an integrity issue if they do not practice baptism by immersion, Scriptural baptism is a prerequisite for Lord’s Supper, or congregational form of church government in their local church?

Can we split these hairs so fine that a trustee is in good standing if he allows an entity to adhere to the BF&M even though he and his local church may not?

January 7, 2019 2:58 pm

Alan Cross

Are you suggesting that trustees and SBC officials only come from churches who practice close communion? Most large SBC churches don’t practice anything near congregational church government. Baptism by immersion seems to be universal throughout the SBC. I know of no churches who deviate from that. But, on the other issues, should we apply a strict reading of the BFM2000 to how we select trustees? Convention officials? Just trying to better understand what you mean by your last question.

January 7, 2019 3:51 pm

dean stewart

I didn’t suggest anything I asked 2 legitimate questions.

From the post and comments it appears the purpose of the BF&M is to protect our entities’ theological fidelity. Trustees are given, by the SBC, the fiduciary responsibility to ensure our entities adhere to the BF&M.

Trustees sign the BF&M when they begin serving. The signature is an affirmation of the BF&M.

If a pastor does not require baptism as a prerequisite to receiving the Lord’s Supper or baptism by immersion he is outside the BF&M. That may not be an issue in the local church because the BF&M has little or nothing to do with the local church. It does matter on the convention level for the BF&M is our means of ensuring theological fidelity of our entities.

Do trustees who affirm the BF&M for the purpose of serving as a trustee but in actuality do not affirm the BF&M have an integrity issue?

Is a trustee who might say I will affirm that I will keep the entity I serve latched to the BF&M though I do not affirm the BF&M myself acceptable?

A third question, why have our trustees sign the BF&M if they don’t adhere to them?

January 7, 2019 7:05 pm

Les

That would be up to the various nominations committees to properly vet the trustee candidates. Someone could slip through but due diligence in the trustee selection process would certainly help.

If you aren’t suggesting anything with your questions (I take you at your word), how do you answer them? How do you think we should answer them? What should we do with churches who practice open/modified communion? Should people from those churches be barred from serving as trustees or in any capacity with SBC entities? I am genuinely curious how people answer this question.

January 8, 2019 9:53 am

Dean Stewart

My answer to these questions are:
1. I do believe a person who affirms the BF&M for the purpose of serving as a trustee when he in fact does not affirm it has an integrity issue.

2. I am not certain if a person while not adhering to the BF&M personally but affirms he will keep our entity in line with the BF&M is acceptable.

3. The BF&M, while a fine statement of faith, has been emasculated by Southern Baptist’s use of it in the 21st century. There is no sense having people sign the thing if we are not going to use it in its entirety to enforce doctrinal positions of local churches.

One may be comfortable with people who do not require baptism as a prerequisite for participating in the Lord’s Supper to serve as a trustee. I am not comfortable with individuals choosing what part of our convention approved statements of faith must be affirmed and what parts are not really essential for our employees, trustees, etc.

I am unaware of any SBC church that has a CEA (Communion Enforcement Agency) to stand guard as to who takes and who does not take the Lord’s Supper.

Maybe that is where the SBC is heading.

January 10, 2019 4:36 am

Dean Stewart

Jon, you and I both know that is not where we are headed. My point is if the BF&M can’t be used to ensure doctrinal fidelity among our churches it will in turn not ensure doctrinal fidelity in our entities. My questions however are legitimate concerning our trustees and even our employee hires. There are individuals signing the BF&M that do not adhere to it. Congregational form of government, baptism before Lord’s Supper, baptism by immersion seem to be black and white in our statement of faith. Yet, these positions seemingly are ignored regularly. I say seemingly because I pastor 1 church and have no idea what is going on in the other 40,000 churches. I can testify we require baptism before participating in the Lord’s Supper with the only exception being a person who has made a profession of faith and is scheduled to be baptized.

What do you do if a person takes the Lords Supper who you know has not been baptized? Do your Deacons tell the person to put the bread back?

If you are going to set rules, they have to be informed or they are moot.

January 10, 2019 2:09 pm

dean stewart

Jon, I give instructions before we serve the Lord’s Supper. I go to great lengths to relay our convictions as a church and Southern Baptist. I can’t imagine a church serving the Lord’s Supper without first giving instructions. Now it is impossible for us to know everyone in our church or their baptism. If someone hears the instructions and ignores them that certainly is on them.

That you instruct is great. This can only help. Can you share briefly what you instruct. I am wondering about saved, baptized visitors. Are they welcome to participate? One of the most meaningful Lords Supper experience I have had was as a visitor to Oak Cliff Bible Church with Tony Evans and the ladies passed the elements. They were dressed to the hilt all in white.

January 11, 2019 7:00 am

Dean Stewart

Jon, I invite guests who are saved to join us in the celebration.

Instructions are brief. The Lord’s Supper is for anyone who has been born again and followed the Lord in Scriptural Baptism. If you haven’t been saved you have no reason to celebrate the Lord’s death. All of our guests who have been saved and Scripturally baptized are welcome to participate in the Supper with us this morning. (If we have candidates awaiting baptism we communicate with them that they are welcome to participate.) This is not intended for small children or for people who have rejected Christ.

I then share briefly about examining yourself from I Cor. 13. I am persuaded the examination is what is your attitude toward others and how to you treat others. I will skip the exegesis that leads me to this conclusion.

My problem is regarding the Lord’s Supper as a reward or privilege for being baptized. Being baptized and observing the LS are both commands. Failing to observe one does not disqualify (or absolve) you from observing the other.

To the contrary: Willful disobedience against any of Christ’s commands is grounds for church discipline, which excludes one from the Supper. My position is simply that our church would discipline anyone who refused baptism; therefore, anyone who would refuse baptism ought not to partake.

No, but anyone who would be subject to discipline if not a member is someone who ought not to partake. If we didn’t think that were a standard that we could legitimately apply, we would limit the Supper to members of our local church. Indeed, that is THE rationale for closed communion.

We do not vote on anyone to be a member until they are baptized. None of that walk the aisle…vote them in stuff. Application… membership class… baptism if needed. Then again, l we baptize many that do not seek church membership.

It depends. Do you want a denomination based on doctrinal conformity, which by the very definition of that term is antithetical to what characterizes Baptist identity, or do you want a group of Christians in fellowship and cooperative ministry who agree on the essentials and give liberty in the non-essentials? And who decides which interpretation is more “Baptist” than another? Do you exclude anyone who isn’t premillennial dispensationalist? Cessationists or continuationists? Calvinists or Arminians?

Individual Baptist churches, local associations, state conventions, national conventions, and world alliances each define for themselves what they mean by Baptist. For some it’s broad for others it’s narrow. In considering cooperation and affiliation, messengers to the SBC determine how broad or how narrow they wish for their confession of faith to be.

January 7, 2019 9:12 pm

Tarheel_Dave

Lee,

You asked: “Do you exclude anyone who isn’t premillennial dispensationalist? Cessationists or continuationists? Calvinists or Arminians?”

The BFM2K does not set forth “hard” positions on those matters does it? Phrased differently – does the BFM2K prescribe a uniform eschatological, tongues, or soteriological position?

I think one of the real beauties of it is that all the positions you named and other secondary and tertiary issues, on which brothers and sisters disagree, are in fact within the “theological guardrails” of the BFM2K .

January 9, 2019 5:13 am

Nancy2

Questions:
If the SBC adopts BFM2k, requiring all affiliated churches to adopt the BFM2k, will each and every member of an SBC affiliated church must accept/adopt the BFM2k?
Are we looking at potential contracts for church membership?

Doubt it. The individual church would have to as a whole, according to their individual polity, enact the BFM2000 as their doctrinal statement. It would then be up to the individual whether they are a member of that church or not.

I served a church that used the 2000 as a statement of faith with members that did not agree with it. Odd thing, but to my way of thinking that is the individual’s conscience and not mine.

January 8, 2019 10:14 am

David

There are two discussions going on here:
1. Institutional conformity to the BFM2000
2. Individual church conformity to the BFM2000 or any other proposal passed at the Annual Meeting for that matter.

The second is not going to happen as this goes against SBC polity.

The first is another matter which entities of the SBC have attempted to enforce to varying degrees. Here are some observations:
1. Institutions of the SBC have had doctrinal statements long before the CR, yet there were still liberal professors who signed the “Abstract of Principles” (in the case of Southern Seminary) or whatever doctrinal statement existed for their institution. So having employees sign a doctrinal statement didn’t guarantee that they would keep their word and teach in accordance to the Seminaries doctrinal statement.
2. Bart mentioned CBF – They are a present day case in point. In the beginning of CBF, they specifically stated that they and the seminaries they supported, would not be gay affirming. However, at least one of their seminary professors has probably been one of the most vocal online proponents of gay marriage.
3. The SBC colleges are another challenging situation. There are several former SBC affiliated colleges (Wake Forest, Stetson, Furman, and Belmont) which chose to leave their respective state conventions due to theological differences. Now, there is another group which is toying with whether to remain in affiliation with their respective state convention – Samford, Baylor, and apparently Southwest Baptist University. In the case of Samford, the faculty senate and student body voted to affirm a LGBTQ group as a club on campus. Due to the controversy, Samford no longer accepts funds from the Alabama Baptist Convention.

Back to Bart’s original post. The catalyst for each version of the Baptist Faith and Message has been as a reaction to challenges to orthodoxy. In 1925, The Scopes Trial on evolution had rocked American culture calling into question the authority of Scripture. In 1963, the issue was a book by a Southern Seminary professor called The Stories of Genesis which called into question the veracity of the first chapters of Genesis. Seventeen years later after the tumultuous 1960’s and 70’s in which American culture changed dramatically with the Sexual Revolution, and the Women’s Liberation movement, which produced the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision and the efforts at passing the Equal Rights Amendment, the Conservative Resurgence in the SBC began which produced the BFM1998 and BFM 2000.

While having a doctrinal statement of beliefs is great as a foundation, history has shown that hasn’t guaranteed conformity – If that were the case, the CR wouldn’t have happened in the first place and the various formerly SBC affiliated colleges wouldn’t have left. When the hearts of men are not for the Gospel, they will have no qualms with signing a doctrinal statement and teaching in opposition to it.

It absolutely does not “go against SBC polity” for the SBC to have and enforce a doctrinal standard upon affiliated churches. I have addressed this in the OP. I will elaborate further in this comment.

1. The SBC has not had a single day of existence without an enforced doctrinal standard to which member churches had to conform. A church cannot sprinkle infants and affiliate with the SBC, and that has been true since 1845.

2. The Constitution & Bylaws of the SBC already state that a church is only in friendly cooperation with the SBC if it “Has a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.” So, although there is some wiggle room as to HOW closely amounts to “closely identifies,” we have indicated since the beginning, throughout our history, and down through today that churches who depart from Southern Baptist belief, crossing whatever doctrinal boundaries the SBC may choose to define, will be disfellowshipped.

3. This is no violation of local church autonomy for the reasons I have already highlighted in the OP.

4. It would be difficult to imagine how we could have a discussion about “SBC polity” without making reference to the decisions of SBC churches at the SBC meeting or making reference to the governing documents of the SBC, yet in the very act of doing so we are identifying a doctrinal standard (“SBC polity”) that is enacted by the convention and enforced upon the local churches. Those churches must do their cooperative work according to the theological principles that constitute “SBC polity,” or else they must cooperate with someone else. Thus, we must either say that there IS no such thing as “SBC polity,” or we must agree that it is SBC polity to require that member churches agree to certain theological principles in order to cooperate with one another. This has been true since the inception of the SBC, as the Convention’s early relationship with the anti-Missionary movement evidences.

Requiring churches to affirm or adhere to an doctrinal statement generated by an independent, autonomous denominational organization makes the organizational structure more like the Roman Catholic church. Require churches to adopt the BFM 2000 in order to be part of the denomination and it won’t be long before outlines and content for sermons will be sent to pastors who will be told to preach them in order to make sure they are in line with the doctrinal statement.

January 8, 2019 9:25 am

David

I used the wrong word in saying “polity”, but instead should have said “political reality.” I absolutely agree with you that legally the SBC can vote to disfellowship churches who do not follow the governing doctrines of the SBC. However, the point of my post is that realistically, the more likely changes are to occur at the entity level rather than the individual church level.

It has been almost 40 years since the CR began, and over that time, there haven’t been that many churches where the SBC has voted to disfellowship them. If there were a ground swell movement, it most likely would have occurred by now. As I said in my other post, there are approximately 45,000 churches affiliated with the SBC – who is going to take on looking at the websites to see if they specifically state they affirm BFM 2000?

What is of greater concern to me at least is the continued secularization of SBC affiliated colleges and universities. A recent example is Belmont. In discussing leaving the Tennessee Baptist Convention, their administration said that only 25% of their student body were Baptists. I have read that 5 out of 6 students who were involved in church youth programs will stop attending church during their college years – this seems to me at least to be a bigger challenge rather than which church has a close communion or not.

Another reality is that out of 45,000 SBC churches, roughly around 5,000 people attend the annual meeting – given the fact that most of the churches attending will have more than one messenger, it is a small fraction of the churches who are actually voting. Therefore, churches who may be dually aligned with CBF or whatever group are most likely not involved in the voting anyway.

The folks at the Founders Blog have been proposing resolutions for a number of years to get churches to clean up their membership roles and have not been successful. Therefore, it doesn’t seem likely at this time that a resolution to have all SBC churches to vote to affirm the BFM 2000 is going to happen. However, if enough folks are convinced that it is worth pursuing, it can happen.

Final thought: In my earlier post, I said that, back in the 1960’sand 70’s, even when professors at Southern Seminary were required to sign the Abstract of Principles, they didn’t obey it and still taught liberal doctrine. The real issue is a heart issue. Having churches or individuals affirm doctrinal statements doesn’t insure the outcome desired. Instead, perhaps the focus should be on praying for revival of individual churches rather than whether they have stated conformity to all aspects of BFM 2000.

Is this a Texas thing? Maybe it’s different where you have two state conventions, seriously divided associaitons, or in places where there are still colleges that are fuzzy on doctrine. Besides, 19 years in, we are likely farther away from the BFM’s creation than its revision. A movement to push the venerable BFM over the finish line just isn’t bubbling up here, best I can tell from the Georgia Piedmont.

I’m satisfied with the present state of the SBC vis-a-vis the BFM. The SBC has never required formal affirmation of the same. No need to do so now. The intentional statement in the SBC Constitution (“Has a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.”) is sufficient for churches in my view.

My state convention already requires any new churches to “give evidence of its doctrinal integrity in keeping with the Mission Statement of the Georgia Baptist Convention and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as adopted by the Convention.” We did kick a church or two out over the homosexual issue. Current churches do not have to re-up with the BFM. If required to do so, I’d guess that 500-1000 churches would not formally do so. I doubt the GBMB is interested in excluding these.

My association is more or less about the same on this. After 183 years of existence, their primary problem is survival not lax doctrine on the part of any member churches.

But, I have no objection to encouraging state convenitons and associations to affirm the BFM. Both my state and association have been on board for years.

One of the arguments I’ve heard against the BF&M 2000 is that it was not a widespread cooperative work. Perhaps we need to pursue a revised BF&M with a committee that would include participation of state convention leadership, including those conventions like the Baptist General Convention of Texas that still hold to the 1963 BF&M.

We could shoot for a release date of 2025. This would be symbolic because 2025 will be the 100th anniversary of the Convention’s adoption of its first formal statement of faith (the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message) AND the adoption and establishment of “The Co-Operative Program of Southern Baptists.”

In that same year, we could amend the Constitution, changing “Has a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith” to “Has adopted the Convention’s current statement of faith.”

For clarity, when I say “release date” I mean at the 2025 SBC messengers would vote to adopt the new statement of faith and amend the Constitution. This would give us six (6) years to make every effort in “…eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the Baptist denomination of Christians, for the propagation of the gospel.”

In response to David–The issue in 1963 was the publication of a book called The Message of Genesis. Dr. Ralph Elliott wrote the book. At the time he was an Old Testament professor at Midwestern Baptist Seminary, but he studied at Southern Seminary. In his book he presented the ideas he had learned at Southern Seminary. These ideas caused an uproar in the SBC and led to his dismissal at Midwestern Seminary. Some years later he wrote a book about his experience, called The Genesis Controversy. The book is rather sad, really, and in the book he questions why the professors at Southern Seminary did not support him for teaching and writing the ideas they taught him.

In regard to Southern Seminary, during its years of liberalism the presidents and deans did not hold the faculty accountable to teach in accordance with the Abstract of Principles (its confession of faith). The problem was not with the Abstract, but rather with the actions (or non-actions) of the seminary’s administrators. Believe me, that changed when Albert Mohler became the president in 1993.

I agree with Bart about Southwestern Baptist University. If the college’s trustees and Missouri Baptists want the college to conform to the 2000 Baptist Statement of Faith and Message, all they have to do is adopt it and insist that professors teach in accordance with it.

Whatever the reason, the BF&M 2000 seems to have a dark cloud hanging over it and evokes a degree of bitterness. Working together on a new/revised statement of faith detached from but sensitive to the pains of the past might just be the thing we need to renew our cooperative zeal as churches, local associations, state conventions, and as a national body.

January 8, 2019 12:16 pm

Bill Mac

Is the BFM what we must believe or theoretically what we do believe? If the latter, then the part about the Lord’s Supper would well be inaccurate.

Just an aside here–I don’t want to divert the discussion. I was just thinking that the strictest, most creed-adhering protestant denomination that I can imagine was, in the end, not preserved by their creed. I would have thought that such strict adherence would have prevented a slide away from inerrancy and conservative theology, but it didn’t turn out so.

Just a thought…

January 8, 2019 2:09 pm

Roger Simpson

Ken: Could you give us a clue as to what denomination is [or was] “the strictest, most creed adhering protestant denomination?”

IMHO, it was Presbyterians. They would have formal trials when someone was accused of not adhering to the Westminster Confession, for example. While there may be one or two Presby denominational organizations today that remain preserved, how can the liberal ones be explained?

January 8, 2019 11:56 pm

Tarheel_Dave

As to the Presbys – I think that’s why there’s two (major ones) of them now….

Whatever we all think about making the Convention confessional at the local church level, I believe the Lord’s Supper issue and a few others demand some more careful attention—those others being at the very least the Christian and the social order, the family, “the office of pastor,” and, ahem, the Lord’s day.

If we’re ready as a Convention to have a serious discussion about theology and confessionalism (are we?), I’m inclined to believe that a Pastors’ Conference would be the best venue. Anybody around here know how to run one?

January 8, 2019 11:52 pm

Tarheel_Dave

Bart,

Good article. I personally would vote in favor of what you’re suggesting. .

January 9, 2019 5:47 am

Alan Davis

Bart I agree with your article. Well done! The church I’m a member of adopted the 2000bfm immediately after the convention in Orlando.

I agree with you, Bart. What I really like about the BF&M is that its language leaves room for differing views on nonessentials while maintaining a firmly conservative theology. As an example, I’m more inclined toward post- or mid-trib, and would not be welcome in a strictly pre-trib organization (of which there are many); and I appreciate SBC inclusiveness in that regard. I’ve noticed more than a few who would press for “tightening” the language on such things as original sin and regeneration. Hopefully, such a suggestion is seen for what it is: a desire to evict whole sections from the SBC.

Some editing would help. Here’s one example. III. Man – replace with ‘people’. People are a special creation of God. IV. Salvation – ‘salvation involves the redemption of the whole person’, rather than the ‘whole man’. No, I am not a gender fanatic nor a feminist.

I signed it 18 years ago. It wasn’t the use of ‘man’ that I had to mull over before signing. The word ‘man’ itself did even register on my cultural radar at the time.

Although we still often use ‘man’, ‘mankind’, ‘men’ in phrases to refer to people, society, in general, has slowly made certain changes in word choices in the past decade. Language does adapt over time. Baptists, of my generation and older, are in the habit of using ‘man’ to refer to women, too. It doesn’t make them sound sexist to me. Among other things, it makes them sound a bit old-fashioned or fogeyish. And also, sadly, it makes them sound somewhat indifferent to the society in which their daughters and granddaughter live. Sorry, all you ‘brethren’ users. Words do matter. Just my humble opinion.

Many lay people and leaders do not use ‘man’ to refer to men and women. It’s 2019 and many people just are not accustomed anymore to using the generic ‘man’. Instead, they use ‘person’, ‘people’, ‘men and women’, brothers and sisters’, and so on. If the BF&M is for tomorrow and next year and 2020, etc, let’s update it to represent both the semantic and cultural context of today, rather than yesterday.